Physics outreach programs provide a critical context for informal experiences that promote the transition from new student to contributing physicist. Prior studies have suggested a positive link between participation in informal physics outreach programs and the development of a student's physics identity. In this study, we adopt a student-focused investigation to explore the effects of informal programs on dimensions of physics identity, sense of community, 21st century skill development, and motivation. We employed a mixed methods study combining a survey instrument (117 responses) and interviews (35) with current and former undergraduate and graduate students who participated in five programs through a physics and astronomy department at a large land-grant university. To examine interviews, we employed a framework based on situated learning theory, transformative learning theory, and the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity. Our findings, based on self-reported data, show that students who facilitated informal physics programs positively developed their physics identity, experienced increased sense of belonging to the physics community, and developed 21st century career skills. Specifically, students reported positive benefits to their communication, teamwork and networking, and design skills. The benefits of these programs can be achieved by departments of any size without significant commitment of funds or changes to curriculum.
Many undergraduate and graduate physics students participate in some form of public engagement throughout the course of their studies, often through groups supported by physics departments and universities. These informal teaching and learning programs can offer unique opportunities for physics identity development. Understanding how physics identities can be fostered will allow us to work toward a field that is inclusive of more identities. In this study, we build on previous work to investigate student-facilitator experiences in three informal physics programs using an operationalized Commun…
This paper addresses issues related to the process of informal socialization into physics, particularly for senior graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Many physicists' careers are built on the relationships they have and develop during these critical years.
The summer training program for Italian undergraduate and graduate students at the Department of Energy (DOE) laboratory of Fermilab (Batavia, Illinois, USA) started in 1984 as a 2 month training program for Italian undergraduate students in physics of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) collaborating in the Collider Detector experiment (CDF) at the Fermilab Tevatron proton - antiproton collider. While in 1984 the program involved only 4 physics students from the University of Pisa, in the following years it rapidly grew in scope and size under the management of the Cultural Assoc…
Gender bias, reduced sense of belonging, and lower physics self-efficacy are among the challenges faced by female students who choose to study physics. Prior studies focusing on this underrepresented group have examined the experiences and impacts of formal educational settings, leaving the impact of informal physics programs as a relatively overlooked area. Existing research on the impact of informal physics programs indicates that student facilitators, who help run the programs, can experience positive impacts on their learning and sense of community beyond the formal setting of a classroom …
In July 2017, National University of Singapore hosted the 30th International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT) with symbolic participation of $30$ competing teams. IYPT is a modern scientific competition for teams of high school students, also known as Physics World Cup. Here we present a brief report from this years competition with a concise list of problems solved by participating teams. For one of the problems, Torsion gyroscope, we also bring a glimpse into its theoretical and experimental solution.
Studies on physics identity have shown that it is one of the main factors that can predict a person's persistence in the field; therefore, studying physics identity is critical to increase diversity within the field of physics and to understand what changes can allow more women and minorities to identify with the field. In this study, we investigate informal physics programs as spaces for physics identity exploration. These programs provide unique conditions under which to study physics identity development along with other identities. Informal physics spaces allow for voluntary engagement, as…
Six specific modes of reasoning about ratio and proportion have been delineated as a means of operationalizing expert practice. These modes stem from consideration of how physicists reason in context, are informed by prior work in physics and mathematics education, and have grain size matched to the steps in reasoning needed to solve problems commonly used in physics instruction. A suite of assessment questions has been developed and validated to probe student facility with the reasoning modes. Responses to open-ended and multiple-choice versions of the assessment questions have been collected…
Much of the research done by modern physicists would be impossible without the use of computation. And yet, while computation is a crucial tool of practicing physicists, physics curricula do not generally reflect its importance and utility. To more tightly connect undergraduate preparation with professional practice, we integrated computational instruction into middle-division classical mechanics at the University of Colorado Boulder. Our model for integration works within the constraints of faculty who do not specialize in computation teaching standard physics courses by placing a strong emph…
There has been an increased focus on the integration of practices into physics curricula, with a particular emphasis on integrating computation into the undergraduate curriculum of scientists and engineers. In this paper, we present a university-level, introductory physics course for science and engineering majors at Michigan State University (MSU) called ${\rm P}^3$ (Projects and Practices in Physics) that is centered around providing introductory physics students with the opportunity to appropriate various science and engineering practices. The ${\rm P}^3$ design integrates computation with …
As a result of the deep modifications of the French physics and chemistry curricula in upper secondary school during these last three years, the physics department of the Université Paris Diderot (France) wished to develop a renovation project concerning its methods of teachings. As science education researchers we took part in this project questioning 104 university academics of this department through 23 exploratory interviews and 81 questionnaires. They have been asked about the possible and desirable changes concerning pedagogical methods and organization (with respect to current difficult…
Several consecutive experiments with specifically built set-up are described. Performing of the consecutive experimental tasks enables possibility to determine Boltzmann's constant $k_\mathrm{_B}$. The fluctuations of the voltage $U(t)$ of series of capacitors connected in parallel with a constant resistance are measured. The voltage is amplified 1~million times $Y=10^6$. The amplified voltage $YU(t)$ is applied to a device, which give the voltage mean quared in time $U_2=\left<(Y U(t))^2\right>/U_0$. This voltage $U_2$ is measured with a multimeter. A series of measurements gives the possibil…
Mathematics is an essential element of physics problem solving, but experts often fail to appreciate exactly how they use it. Math may be the language of science, but math-in-physics is a distinct dialect of that language. Physicists tend to blend conceptual physics with mathematical symbolism in a way that profoundly affects the way equations are used and interpreted. Research with university physics students in classes from algebra-based introductory physics indicates that the gap between what students think they are supposed to be doing and what their instructors expect them to do can cause…
Several consecutive experiments are described with a printed circuit board PCB set-up, especially designed for these experiments. Doing the consecutive experimental tasks opens up possibility to determine the value of electron charge $q_e.$ The fluctuations of the voltage $U(t)$ should be measured for different illuminations of a photodiode. The voltage is amplified 1 million times $Y=10^6$. The amplified voltage $YU(t)$ is applied to the device, which gives the result of the value of the time averaged square of the voltage $U_\mathrm{S}=\left<(Y U(t))^2\right>/U_0$. This voltage $U_\mathrm{S}…
We offer second year students the opportunity to explore Current Topics in Biophysics in a course co-taught by a physicist and a biologist. The interdisciplinary course allows university students to engage in analytical thinking that integrates physics and biology. The students are either biophysics majors (50%) or from a diversity of science majors (about 30% life sciences). All will have taken first year courses in biology, physics and mathematics. The course is divided into: 1) The application of physical approaches to biological problems using case studies (how high can a tree grow? and bi…
There is a large variety of goals instructors have for laboratory courses, with different courses focusing on different subsets of goals. An often implicit, but crucial, goal is to develop students` attitudes, views, and expectations about experimental physics to align with practicing experimental physicists. The assessment of laboratory courses upon this one dimension of learning has been intensively studied in US institutions using the Colorado Learning Attitudes Science Survey for Experimental Physics (E-CLASS). However, there is no such an instrument available to use in Germany, and the in…
Despite the difficult circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemics, physics students can tackle interesting questions that are part of physics competitions as the German Physicists' Tournament (GPT) 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemics in 2020, many competitions such as the GPT are held online. Furthermore, the usual options of equipment offered by the supervising university institutions could not be used by the students. The problems of the GPT 2020 therefore had to be chosen in such a way that they could be examined at home using simple means. One of these supposedly simple but profound experi…
Exploring the experiences of undergraduate physics students taking a 'Teaching Physics in School' module and the effects on their intentions to become a secondary physics teacher
We present the screenplay of a physics show on particle physics, by the Physikshow of Bonn University. The show is addressed at non-physicists aged 14+ and communicates basic concepts of elementary particle physics including the discovery of the Higgs boson in an entertaining fashion. It is also demonstrates a successful outreach activity heavily relying on the university physics students. This paper is addressed at anybody interested in particle physics and/or show physics. This paper is also addressed at fellow physicists working in outreach, maybe the experiments and our choice of simple ex…
The intuitive reasoning of physicists in conditions of uncertainty is closer to the Bayesian approach than to the frequentist ideas taught at University and which are considered the reference framework for handling statistical problems. The combination of intuition and conventional statistics allows practitioners to get results which are very close, both in meaning and in numerical value, to those obtainable by Bayesian methods, at least in simple routine applications. There are, however, cases in which ``arbitrary'' probability inversions produce unacceptable or misleading results and in thes…
University students taking introductory physics are generally successful executing mathematical procedures in context, but often struggle with the use of mathematical concepts for sense making. Physics instructors note that their students experience difficulty with basic algebraic reasoning, a foundation on which more advanced mathematical thinking rests. However, little systematic research has been done to measure and categorize such difficulties in this population. This paper describes an investigation of trends in student reasoning with proportions, quantification, and symbolizing in introd…
Just as expert physicists vary in their personal stances on interpretation in quantum mechanics, instructors vary on whether and how to teach interpretations of quantum phenomena in introductory modern physics courses. In this paper, we document variations in instructional approaches with respect to interpretation in two similar modern physics courses recently taught at the University of Colorado, and examine associated impacts on student perspectives regarding quantum physics. We find students are more likely to prefer realist interpretations of quantum-mechanical systems when instructors are…
Gravity is, by far, one of the scientific themes that have most piqued the curiosity of scientists and philosophers over the centuries. The history of science tells us that when the creative effort of physicists and philosophers to solve the main puzzles of the understanding of our universe met, a new conceptual revolution has started. However, since Einstein's relativistic theories and the subsequent advent of quantum mechanics, physicists and philosophers have taken different paths, both kidnapped by the intrinsic conceptual and mathematical difficulties inherited by their studies. Is it pos…
The objectives of physics laboratory courses include fostering conceptual understanding and development of several important cognitive, psycho-motor, attitudinal and affective abilities. In most of the Indian colleges and universities (and probably at many other places all over the world) the usual practice of performing a set of experiments, in a cook-book mode, seldom helps students achieve the objectives of the physics laboratory courses and develop the abilities and skills required to become a successful experimental physicist. This paper describes the details of an instructional approach …
In 1980 Leon Lederman started Saturday Morning Physics with a handful of volunteer physicists, around 300 students and all the physics teachers who tagged along. Today Fermilab offers over 30 programs annually with help from 250 staff volunteers and 50 educators, and serves around 40,000 students and 2,500 teachers. Find out why we bother. Over the years we have learned to take advantage of opportunities and confront challenges to offer effective programs for teachers and students alike. We offer research experiences for secondary school teachers and high school students. We collaborate with e…
The ability to communicate with all audiences is a skill that is rapidly becoming a must-have for any future scientist. As more physicists engage in communicating science to non-expert audiences, research shows that this experience helps them to get a better understanding of their own research and the impact on society, improves the perception of science by lay audiences and can also become an area of personal growth as a citizen. A recent deployment of a PhD student to the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station, as part of the IceCube Collaboration, provided a ready opportunity to spark interest. …
The perspectives of introductory classical physics students can often negatively influence how those students later interpret quantum phenomena when taking an introductory course in modern physics. A detailed exploration of student perspectives on the interpretation of quantum physics is needed, both to characterize student understanding of physics concepts, and to inform how we might teach traditional content. Our previous investigations of student perspectives on quantum physics have indicated they can be highly nuanced, and may vary both within and across contexts. In order to better unders…
A common learning goal for modern physics instructors is for students to recognize a difference between the experimental uncertainty of classical physics and the fundamental uncertainty of quantum mechanics. Our studies suggest this notoriously difficult task may be frustrated by the intuitively realist perspectives of introductory students, and a lack of ontological flexibility in their conceptions of light and matter. We have developed a framework for understanding and characterizing student perspectives on the physical interpretation of quantum mechanics, and demonstrate the differential im…
